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I LOVE Cheesecake Factory’s fried mac-n-cheese balls! They make me SO happy! Tonight I tried to make them (not my first attempt BTW). So…here they are:

I made mac and cheese Saturday. 1 lb elbow macaroni
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
2 cups milk
1 lb. grated cheddar
1 lb. grated Gouda
Cook the pasta. Drain and rinse. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Sprinkle flour into butter and stir with a whisk. Cook for 2 min. Whisk the warmed milk into the flour mixture, working out any lumps. Cook until the sauce thickens then add in the cheeses. Mix until smooth and melted. Add salt and pepper to taste. Fold the cheese into the macaroni.

At this point, if you are making fried mac and cheese you have to cool the hot stuff! So pour it into a shallow pan and refrigerate at least 2 hours. AFTER it has cooled, shape the cooled mac and cheese into balls and place onto a waxed paper lined tray. Freeze the balls overnight:)

Beat 2 eggs with 2 Tbsp milk to form an egg wash and put into a bowl. Put 3 cups of seasoned bread crumbs into another bowl. (I used 1 cup of bread crumbs and 2 cups of ground fried onions). Remove the balls from the freezer and dip into egg wash then into bread crumbs. Fry in a 350 degree fryer until golden brown about 5 min. Serve hot with sauce (marinara, alfredo or whatever!)

I used queso blanco with jalapeno for our sauce. It helped add some extra flavor. The ground fried onion with the bread crumbs made a really good coating once fried. Certainly a bonus!

Not too bad, although they didn’t really taste like Cheesecake Factory’s. Oh well. I’ll try again another day.

Tonight Adam decided he wanted paella. So instead of chopped fresh onion, fried onion went in. It was pretty good. I made some crepes to go with it. Not the greatest picture, but it’s paella…not a pretty dish to make.

Because I didn’t cook it, I’m going to have my first guest blog post…kind of. I’m going to invite my husband over to my computer so he can tell you how he made the paella. (All I did was cut some carrots.)

I made a paste of Thai Chili paste (about 2 tbsp) and 1/4 tsp of Paprika and Turmeric. Then you brown the chicken with a little olive oil and the paste.

Once browned, set aside the chicken. Then sauté the vegetables in order of cooking time (roughly the order of hardness). I used what we had, carrots, frozen green peppers, frozen corn, fresh garlic and the crispy onions. Then add broth and rice. You want roughly two cups of liquid to one cup of rice and a longer cooking rice is better. I used Thai Coconut Curry Broth to change up the flavor and because that is what we had. Then I added in a can of tomato sauce. The recipe calls for stewed tomatoes, but neither Tami or I really like tomatoes, so I always use sauce.

Then cover and simmer. Check to make sure you have enough liquid and stir regularly. It is easy to burn the bottom of the pan. We ended up adding the rest of the broth and about a cup of water by the time the rice was done. Once the rice is almost done add the chicken and paste back in and simmer for a couple more minutes.

You can add almost anything. It is an easy dish that takes about 45 minutes to an hour depending on what you put in it. It is easy to make a ton and you want to make sure you have a large enough pan to cook it in.

So, that’s the recipe. Of course there will be leftovers for lunch tomorrow but tomorrow night, it will be back to some creative meal using these fried little onions.

Oh, to finish off the meal, I made pina~colada cake! Coconut cake mix with pineapple juice instead of water with a cream cheese frosting! YUM!!! I’ll blog my cake secrets another time.

I am sitting and watching Dinner: Impossible. Chef Irvin is having to cook with dorm food. It inspired me to clean out my kitchen cabinets and when cleaning, I found this…

…a 1 1/2 pound bag of friend onions! On top of that, we haven’t even opened it! So that gave me an idea. Since we often shop warehouse style which means we buy bigger bags of things than 2 people could really consume, I’m going to give myself a challenge, Dinner: Impossible style. Each week, we are going to purchase a bag of something that we don’t use every day to cook with. Then each night of that week, we are going to use said item in some way to make dinner. So this week…it’s fried onions! I will blog each night about what we’re making, pictures included of course and let you know if it works.

Anyone have any ideas for what to do with these babies, OTHER THAN GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE??? Bring on the ideas!!!

This morning I re-read the story of David and Goliath. Not on purpose but because it was the next chapter in 1 Samuel, which is the book of the Bible I am currently reading. While I was reading the very familiar story, I had a few “ah-ha”s.

1st: Sometimes people will convince you to do something because they think you will fail, even when you think it’s completely plausible that you will succeed. In this case Saul let David go out there cause he wanted him dead, not because he thought he could defeat Goliath. The best part of this is that when you succeed, people are blown away 🙂

2nd: Don’t wear other people’s armor, cause it won’t fit…even if it seems like you’ll be safer. Saul offered David, the shepherd boy, his armor for the battle. David put it on a quickly realized, it didn’t fit and was going to hinder more than help. Often people offer us what works for them and we want to put it on cause it seems so much better than the “nothing” that we came to the battle with. But if you can’t walk in it because you are not used to it, there’s no use.

3rd: Don’t sell yourself short. You’re probably really good with a sling-shot! David was not only offered Saul’s armor but his helmet and sword too. What else would he fight with? He quickly put down the sword, removed everything else, picked up his shepherd’s staff and 5 smooth stones. He knew what he was good at and decided to play to his strengths.

4th: When giants taunt and come at you, know who’s got your back, run toward your target and aim high! David was confident, not because he was a good shot (although apparently he was) but because he knew that God was in his corner. Sometimes that’s hard because God’s up there somewhere and the people who think we’re crazy are here, telling us what they think. But when you’ve got God in your corner, nothing else really matters.

So, tonight I say to face your giant you must: 1) identify your battles 2)choose weapons from your own arsenal 3) play to your strengths and 4) trust in the one who desires only the best for you always.

Today I began a 21 day fast. I’m not going to blog about how hard it is not to eat brownies or anything like that…at least not yet. I am going to try to get back to the way I used to get to the root of my feelings, poetry. I’m not a great poet, I can however find words that rhyme and put them in some comprehensible order. I have written very little poetry since I met Adam. I have often wondered why and today I pondered it a bit. I think before he came into my life, I wrote poetry to share what was happening in my life with someone. Now, I share it with him. Which would be fine except I feel like I have lost part of me. So, for this 21 days, I’m going to write a poem every day. We’ll see how it goes!